SolarWinds Discovery Enhancements - Streamlined Activation of Discovery Scanner

[nshah]

SolarWinds Service Desk is excited to announce that several enhancements to the SolarWinds Discovery Scanner are now available. These enhancements further extend our agentless scanning capabilities by streamlining activation of the Discovery Scanner via improved usability and greater visibility into the deployment process. These capabilities include the following:

• Last Scan Report:
  The Last Scan Report gives you better visibility into the Discovery scanning process by providing a detailed report on the last scan results. This report includes the number of devices that have been:

  • Scanned

  • Included

  • Updated

  • Newly Detected

  • Discarded

  • Skipped

    

     

• Test Credentials:
  During the installation process, the Discovery Scanner requires access to credentials in order to collect additional data on scanned devices. Instead of waiting for the next scan to determine if this works, you can now test your credentials before the scan begins. This helps ensure that the next scan will pass successfully while saving you time, since you can validate your credentials prior to the scan.

  

   

• Start/Stop Scan:
  The user can now force the Discovery Scanner to initiate an immediate scan or stop the scanning while it is in progress (See picture 2 below). This improves the user experience by giving you the flexibility to start or stop scans based on the needs of your organization as well as your schedule.
  
  

  

    

• Include and Exclude Ports from Scan:
  The Discovery Scanner performs the scanning of a subnet based on the Nmap tool, which has a port list of 130+ well-known TCP ports (see below or our documentation).

Default Ports Scanned Via Nmap
7	37	113	162	513	587	1025	1521	2000	2483	3986	5432	7070	9999
9	53	119	179	514	631	1026	1688	2001	2484	4899	5631	8000	10000
13	79	135	199	515	646	1027	1701	2049	2701	5000	5666	8008	32768
20	80	137	389	520	711	1028	1707	2101	2717	5009	5800	8009	49152
21	81	138	427	543	830	1029	1720	2103	3000	5051	5900	8080	49153
22	88	139	443	544	873	1110	1723	2105	3020	5060	5950	8081	49154
23	106	143	444	548	990	1293	1755	2107	3128	5061	6000	8443	49155
25	110	144	445	554	993	1433	1801	2121	3306	5101	6001	8888	49156
26	111	161	465	555	995	1434	1900	2427	3389	5190	6646	9100	49157

We are focusing on the most important ports to help optimize the Scanner and thus make the discovery scanning process quicker for you. However, if you do need to add additional ports or remove unnecessary ports to the Scanner, you can now include or exclude ports by expanding or limiting ports/port ranges.

As we continue to improve the SolarWinds Service Desk, we appreciate your feedback. Let us know what you think about these enhancements!